Angelfish and Discus

[Lee Miller]

Anyone kept them together successfully before? What worked for you? Tips? Tricks?

[Andy's Fish Den]

I have kept angels and discus together many times. I kept the water temp 82-84 and they did fine together. As long as you can make sure everyone eats their fair share, keep up water changes you should be fine. 

[Lee Miller]

Group size of each? Tank size?

[Paul]

6 hours ago, Andy's Fish Den said:

I have kept angels and discus together many times. I kept the water temp 82-84 and they did fine together. As long as you can make sure everyone eats their fair share, keep up water changes you should be fine. 

Ditto this ^^. In my experience as long as the Angelfish is similar to or smaller than the Discus it will be fine. 

 

[Nataku]

Big tank.

Lots of breaks in line of sight ie plants. Driftwood. Plants. More plants. Bare tanks are battlegrounds. Did I mention plants?

Warm temp. 84 works for both in my experience.

Feed often, small meals. I was doing 2-3x a day. Keeping them full keeps them much more tolerant of other fish when they don't feel like food is a limited resource.

Water change a lot. Lots of high protein food for lots of big fish equals big stinky poo mess. Stay on top of that water quality. The plants will help but they are not going to do the job on their own.

Keep a group of each. 6+ of each. Preferably 8+.  Be ready with spare tanks to deal with problematic individuals.  

Have a hospital tank (or two) ready. Do not leave a sick fish in the main tank. It becomes a target and everyone wants to pick on them, regardless of species. They go downhill real fast that way. Let them heal in isolation. Return to tank after big water change and some rescaping.

Introduce  fish around the same size. Don't put adult angels with baby discus. Discus can be slightly larger than angels and that will be fine. But no more than an inch body size difference on introduction.

When they become mature, watch out for pairs. Some pairs can exist peacefully in a big community like this. Some cannot.  Be ready to separate if it happens.

[Jessica.]

That's my planted discus tank in the thumbnail for this post! 😄

You've gotten great advice above. Many people mix the two with good results. 

I'd also add that it would be good to get at least 3.5-4" discus, and make sure to buy from a quality supplier. Smaller discus need a lot of food and water changes to grow out, and probably won't thrive in a community tank. 

Stendker, a well know german discus breeder, have a very informative handbook available online that covers all aspects, including suitable tanks mates. https://diskuszucht-stendker.de/en/Diskus-Handbuch/

 

 

[Lee Miller]

20 minutes ago, Jessica. said:

That's my planted discus tank in the thumbnail for this post! 😄

You've gotten great advice above. Many people mix the two with good results. 

I'd also add that it would be good to get at least 3.5-4" discus, and make sure to buy from a quality supplier. Smaller discus need a lot of food and water changes to grow out, and probably won't thrive in a community tank. 

Stendker, a well know german discus breeder, have a very informative handbook available online that covers all aspects, including suitable tanks mates. https://diskuszucht-stendker.de/en/Diskus-Handbuch/

 

 

OMG! Thank you for this info! It is a wealth of knowledge on Discus.